Canada Wins GOLD: Outlasting USA to Claim World Championship

For those of you living in an efficiency located directly under a rock, the Canadian National Lacrosse Team won the Gold Medal at the 2014 World Lacrosse Championships in Denver, Colorado in a monumental win over powerhouse Team USA. This marked the 3rd time in history that the Canadians topped the US to win the Gold!

July 10th was the opening ceremony for the World Games and following the celebration, Canada took the field to square off in a rematch of the 2010 Gold Medal Game against the United States, this time on the American’s own soil.

In front of an enormous crowd in Dick’s Sporting Goods Stadium, the United States were able to outwork the Canadians to secure a 10-7 victory on the opening night of the games.

Whether they got the jitters out on the first night, or they just hated the taste of blood in their mouths, Canada bounced back from the first loss and and starting bringing the heat against their subsequent opponents. In 7 games, the Canadians outscored their opponents 91 to 39 and managed to win 5 straight heading to the the championship match.

Everyone we talked to at DSGP pretty much had the same opinion, the US was going to continue to dominate as they did in their first 6 games. That was of course except for a few key members of the lacrosse community, those wearing red and white, and of course Canada’s biggest fans at the event, the Austrian National Team. All hope in Team Canada was not lost.

From the opening whistle the tempo was set and not long after Kevin Crowley scored the first two goals of the game for the boys up north and once they went up 2-0, the team never had to look back.

After 80 minutes the scoreboard read 8-5 and Canada was the new World Champions.

Blame it on their box skills, or whatever you want, but the Canadians dominated the States in the ground ball battle, winning 35 to the US’ 22 in the championship match.

Firepower for the Red & White was led by Kevin Crowley who managed work the ball past Schwartzman 5 times in the game while teammates Cam Holding, Mark Matthews and Curtis Dickson all scored 1 each.

The only time spent in the box was a 1 min Jordan Hall slash less than 30 seconds into the 2nd quarter. The team played clean, focused and as a team for 4 quarters and used the FIL rules to their advantage to find the goals they needed and then keep the ball away from American sticks.

We caught up with Brodie Merrill as well as Curtis Dickson, Dillon Ward and Kevin Crowley to get their reaction on winning the gold medal for Canada!

On a side note, I award the Gold Medal for Cuteness to Ms. Merrill who is clearly so proud of her pop and up way past her bedtime!

It was no wonder that goalie Dillon Ward, a Denver favorite, took home all of awards he could by being credited with 10 saves in the final game and slightly over a 63% on saves for the event. Dillon earned the tournament’s MVP award, All-World Goalie, Most Outstanding Goalies and the coveted Canadian Tuxedo from his teammates. Most people say that you can’t take a great box goalie and put him on the field, Dillon Ward laughs in those faces.

Alongside Dillon, Curtis was named to the All-World roster for attack while Brodie Merrill and Kyle Rubisch both earned the defensive honors.

Under the FIL rules, the Canadians were almost flawless, but I’ll let Connor do some more explaining on how Canada won the gold and why some lacrosse fans need to get over it.

Now, what are you waiting for? Take a look at these memorable images from the historic night in Denver!

About the author

Mark Donahue

Transplanted in Boise from Ohio, Mark is the editor, video guy, and box lacrosse junkie at LaxAllStars.com. When he’s not obsessing over lax at LAS HQ or officiating a game somewhere, you can probably find him on the slopes or at the disc golf course.